The current version is usually posted at http://wlweather.net/Pcw/
Spoiler: We lived through all of it, not much the worse for wear. Garbled reports begin on 23 August.
Note: I dared not ride the bike until the stitches were taken out. I still cover the scar with thick "waterproof" tape and a piece of denim when I ride.
Phil has paid off the farm, so I went to the lawyer this morning and signed the deed.
I don't know my way around by car, and I hate having the superstructure of the car in my way when I want to look at something — particularly in the roundabout.
And on the way back, I saw a garage-sale sign. I wouldn't have veered off to it anyway, since it was too early in the day for a Friday garage sale.
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I just read in yesterday's paper that a new medical complex will provide a short cut from Walmart to Aldi.
Put on a shirt I hadn't worn for a while, wondered what was in the pocket, found my missing six-inch steel ruler. (Later on, I found my missing Nonce pencil in the other pocket.)
That happens every now and again.
I'm planning to go to all three farmers markets today (I gave the courthouse a miss last Saturday), but I may not get back from Sweet Corn Charlie before the ice rink closes.
I'll park at the library and walk to the courthouse. [It was a hot and muggy walk. I learned that a pony tail makes my hat tilt forward.]
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All went as planned, save that on the way back from Sweet Corn Charlie, I absent-mindedly crossed Argonne instead of turning left onto it. I went on to Bronson; turning left out of the tunnel on McKinley in a car is Right Out. It's hard enough on a bicycle, and the next time I need to do it, I'll get off, walk across, and remount on the sidewalk on the other side.
The smoked-brisket sliders I bought were slices of brisket, and we had three slices left over, which I'm going to serve with an ear of corn for supper.
And muskmelon for dessert. The melon I bought is bigger than the watermelon I bought on my previous trip.
Got home to find a police car in the driveway. Dave had had another episode, and we have a CARES appointment for Monday. The policeman said that he'll try to get Dave's neurology appointment moved up sooner, but I doubt that it's possible. Dave's neurologist is very popular.
Two pairs of my new socks are in the washer with other black things, and a pair of off-white socks to check whether I can wash the pair I have on with my other clothes.
Tanya dropped in. CARES is with the Warsaw-Wayne Township fire department, but is called all over.
I photographed my leg again.
It looks much better, but that is partly because I'd just had a shower. I can't wash it, but I can let water run over it and blot it dry.
Dave got his three O'clock pill almost on time because I had a leg cramp at half past three.
This is not my favorite alarm clock.
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In the morning I Roomba-ed the hallway and updated my calendar and Dave's medication list. Now the list has his emergency contacts and (we think) all of his doctors.
Gone be busy tomorrow. We go to Goshen in the morning and Dave gets blood drawn in the afternoon, and I have to go to the emergency room to get my stitches taken out. No appointment needed, but I'd better take a book. If getting them *in* was low priority . . .
But that's one place where I'm quite pleased not to go to the head of the line.
And in the evening, we must remember to take the trash out.
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Grumbly-gripe. I distinctly remember thinking "With all this going on, I must check my e-mail more often" as I sat down to check my e-mail this morning, but I must have done something else and forgotten it, because I got a message sent yesterday when I got up from my nap, and there are no back-ups from today on Optiplex 4.
Change of plans: After a phone call, I'm getting my stitches out in the morning and we are going to Goshen in the afternoon. (The blood draw was a misprint; it actually happened on Monday.) I must go right after breakfast in order to be sure of getting back before time to leave.
I'm taking a pair of riding gloves that need darning. Pity I can't buy new cotton-mesh gloves; current gloves are all solid synthetic. No problem for male riders, who sweat in streams and don't care much what the sweat is streaming through.
The good news: I saw the doctor before I got settled in. The bad news: she took out a few stitches, took a close look where they'd been, replaced them with steri-strips, and told me to come back on Friday. (Also said to stop the antibiotic cream and expose the wound to the air.)
I was annoyed because Friday had been the one blank day on my calendar, then I realized that when the stitches are out, I'll be on the other side of Thirty. I can go to Aldi and get a lot of stuff that has been on my shopping list for a long time.
Thinking about wearing long pants to hide my stitches tomorrow reminded me of a song Mom used to sing:
"I knows just how ugly I are
"I knows that my beauty's no star
"But I do not mind it 'cause I am behind it
"It's the ones out in front gets the jar."
My laceration bothers other people a lot more than it bothers me.
It did sting for a few minutes while we were driving to Goshen — but on the other leg. Dave said he's had similar experiences.
Absent-mindedly scratched the wound. Now it itches.
Kathy came to visit this morning and spent quite a while straightening out the health-care representative and power of attorney stuff. She and Dave did all the heavy lifting while I trotted back and forth making copies. Firefox refused to put more than one page in the queue, citing a shortage of memory even though nothing else was running, and some of the pages were blank. At least they usually printed when I sent them through again.
Been too busy doing to find time to write.
This evening I went out on the patio and spent five minutes mending a sock, then spent least half an hour writing it up in my sewing diary. I went off on a tangent seeking the name of Wave Stitch Filling, which I used to replace the broken stitches in the hem. When it's only one row, I think Sans Serif Chevron Stitch, which is what I'd been calling it, is a better name, but I'm the only person in the world who calls it that.
I own, by the way, both of the references that a Web search turned up. But the de Dilmont doesn't have an index, which makes it pretty useless for linguistic purposes. The Mary Thomas is alphabetical.
I need to take all my needlework books off the shelf and appreciate them. I've got some good stuff that has been ignored for decades.
04:46
I scored nine at Hexavirus. I think that that is a new record.
Yesterday, an annual check-up with Darr, and Dave got off one-third of one of his medications.
In the evening, we had a last visit with Kathy before she goes back to Florida tomorrow.
Today, we saw his oncologist. The PET scan was all good news, or at least not bad.
Next Saturday is now in the ten-day forecast, and it looks good for the tomato fest.
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It didn't take long to notice that small paper plates cost more than large paper plates, but I assumed that that was because I bought house-brand dinner plates, but only national brands made dessert plates.
Then Aldi started selling dessert plates. 17-centimeter plates are three dollars for fifty, 8.5" plates are five and a half for a hundred.
I wonder whether one being metric and the other American Customary has anything to do with it.
I rode to Aldi by way of Sweet Corn Charlie and Sprawlmart today, and picked up Dave's antibiotic on the way back.
This round of antibiotic is twice a day instead of four — no getting up at three in the morning.
My first stop was at Big Lots. The merchandise doesn't look picked-over yet, but the jar of petrolatum I bought was the only one on the shelf. It wasn't marked down, but we'd been hunting for a jar that you could get the ointment out of. It's the same shape as the others, but being a thirteen-ounce jar, it's big enough to put a hand in.
I looked for shoes in Sprawls One and Two, but the exit to Aldi is in Two, so I didn't go to Three.
Sweet Corn Charlie didn't have any plums, so all I bought there was six ears of corn.
I'd read that this week's Aldi Finds included all-cotton queen-size sheet sets for about half what it would cost to buy fabric to make a pair, so I scheduled this ride and bought two sets — finally giving in to fitted sheets, since that's the only kind made now. There were only four sets left ("Finds" run Wednesday to Tuesday): two gray queen and a white queen and a white king. I got one gray and one white.
These have elastic all the way around, so they might stay in place. I still have to crawl around poke-poking, but there's only a couple of inches to poke in. Still can't tuck it in at the head, but I can reach a bit farther toward the middle.
One of the old sheets is in the washing machine. My "smart" machine will do only half a load at a time. We rarely need to do more than half a load, but today I would have liked to wash both sheets.
Dr. King has one more trick to try, and we have an appointment for a scope to see whether it will work on Dave.
We had a scare yesterday evening. Dr. King's examination started Dave bleeding, and for a while he thought a clot had clogged the catheter. We spent from then until bedtime with his walker in the car and me in the pants that have car keys in the pocket.
McKinley strikes again! While we were in the treatment room waiting for Dr. King, I noticed a scratched-looking patch of red specks and pink skin on my right wrist and lower forearm. We puzzled over it for a while, and I rubbed it with the A&D I carry in my pocket. Finally remembered that when I got off to walk across Winona the day before, I lost control of the top-heavy bike while trying to lift it up onto the sidewalk and, being in a rush to get out of the street, picked it up by putting my right arm under the top tube. Later a blue mark appeared proximal to the red area, of just the sort I get by pressing a top tube into my arm. It's bluer now, but the red area is mostly gone. [Duh. There's a handicap ramp close to the intersection, and I can ride up onto the sidewalk.]
Putting a rice bag on it for a few minutes made the blue spot less conspicuous and the red spots more conspicuous.
The unopened sheet set weighs four pounds, so the two of them added only eight pounds to the bike, but they were mounted high because they wouldn't fit into a pannier, and the panniers were full of other stuff I'd bought at Aldi, plus six ears of corn. I used all my bungee cords.
It seemed comfortably cool out, but my clothes are soaked in sweat.
Soaked in sweat again, which led to tragedy. I *thought* that I'd brushed lint out of all my pockets, but when I took my jersey out of the washer and started to turn it right-side out so I could hang it up, I felt a lump in one of the pockets.
I'd washed my cellphone. This is the least-convenient possible time to do that.
I meant to open this entry by saying that I'd never thought I'd be unhappy that I can ride my bike instead of driving the car. I can ride my bike to the hospital because there isn't the slightest chance that I will want to bring Dave home with me.
I've got half an hour before I have to brush my teeth and go to bed, but I'm too fuzzy-headed to start trying to untangle the last few days and tell you what's happening.
By the time I get the time, I'll have forgotten.
Oh, there's a piece of good news: when I called Dave to tell him he couldn't text me, he said that Dr. Coats had been in and told him that his blood count is up and he won't have to have a transfusion.
I reflected several times that I wouldn't be going to church today, but I didn't reflect that it's Sunday until my breakfast was hot and I got out today's pills to take with it and saw the Alendronate lying on top.
Fortunately, I hadn't eaten anything yet, but I may not get breakfast if Dave calls me to pick him up.
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Attempt at coherent account:
The first two days are pretty clear.
On Tuesday Dave had an appointment with his new urologist. We like Dr. Bolduin, but we don't like driving to Goshen to see him, and *really* don't like driving to the Goshen emergency room. Dr. King is in Warsaw, only three miles away.
The examination started Dave bleeding, which didn't worry us much — like infections, bleeding comes with the catheter — until that evening, when he thought a clot had clogged the catheter. I dressed to go to the emergency room, but it cleared up and we went to bed.
Wednesday morning, the catheter clogged for real, and we went to the emergency room where (details now forgotten) they changed the catheter for one that we carry to make sure #20 kooday — I think that that is spelled Coudé but I haven't seen it written — is available.
In the evening, the new catheter clogged and we went back. Details again forgotten. A three-way catheter was deemed required, but three-ways aren't made in French (Another way to spell Coudé) and the nurse couldn't get it in — she stopped before creating a new false passage. I believe that Dr. King himself came down (he'd been in surgery when we arrived) and got it in with a wire. He put a wire in, more flexible than the catheter, and I think that he bent the end a bit, like the Coudé. Then he threaded the wire through the catheter, slid the catheter up the wire, and pulled out the wire.
Upshot was that he had to be admitted so that he could be flushed all night.
Since then, it's been "one more night to be sure".
I think that it was Wednesday morning that I hallucinated that the gas gage said "empty" — at first I thought that it was because I'd looked at it on the steep part of Argonne, but I watched it when I climbed Argonne another time, and it didn't change. Being right beside Freedom Express, I pulled in, then realized that I don't know what grade gasoline the Equinox takes. Called Dave to ask, and he said that if it was empty, we must have a gas leak, so I went home and called Steve. At any rate, Steve was there when the doctor was debating whether Dave should stay the night or go home. I noted that Steve had a say because we'd call him if Dave had a setback. It turned out that he did need to be in the hospital.
I think that Steve drove me to the hospital on Thursday before checking the car thoroughly and finding that it was fit to drive. Then he cleaned our gutters.
Thought my bike notes would help, but they list rides only on Friday and Saturday. I'm sure that I went back by bike on the day Steve drove me.
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Timer went off: I can eat. Just as the washing machine goes into final spin.
Above wasn't written all in one sitting.
I'm getting used to peering around the outside mirror when going through the roundabout.
Wednesday's entry is incompatible with spending the morning in the emergency room. But the sheet *has* been washed. Perhaps we weren't in the emergency room very long. We did go quite early.
My attention called to the bike notes, I find that I haven't transcribed them since June 24. And some of them have expenses I recorded when I bought something and didn't get a receipt.
Afternoon: three hours clear and choice paralysis: There are so *many* things I've postponed, and right after I started keeping a list of things to do today.
Mostly I'm catching up the Banner and reading the Times Union.
I did strike "change towel on sewing machine" off Thursday's to-do list. All I did was take the towel outside and shake off the peanut bran, but I had to move all the stuff that accumulates on our sideboard first. Didn't put all of it back.
(We use the cabinet sewing machine that Evelyn wore out for a sideboard.) (Also a place to stash my camera and its cords and spare batteries.)
It must have been Thursday that the catheter clogged, because a note dated Thursday on a piece of paper I'd had in my pocket remarks that the day I fail to refill a depleted emergency-food bag is the day we miss both breakfast and lunch.
They tried a great many things before changing the catheter, because catheter changes irritate the innards.
On the other hand, above that note is written Wednesday's date, as if I'd had something to say and no time to say it. Or maybe I thought I'd have something to say and it didn't happen.
Above that is Tuesday's date and the note I expanded into "McKinley strikes again!"
I've got four meat sticks and two each of granola bars and fruit-and-grain bars in my food bag now.
14:52 One thing I did with the clear time was to call TracFone. A new phone will be shipped tomorrow and arrive on or before Wednesday. No muss, no fuss, and very little money.
If I'd called yesterday, they might have shipped it yesterday. I didn't catch whether the shipping department's day off was just Sunday or Saturday and Sunday.
I needed Dave to remind me that TracFone might be able to help; I was frantically trying to remember whether Kroger sold phones.
I've got a clear-cut case of aphoneaphobia. I don't even want to ride my bike because I have no other way to keep track of time.
Well, that and needing to undress into the washing machine and take a shower when I get back.
16:07 Tuesday's paper announces a new cell-phone policy for Warsaw schools. I remember getting future shock when I was substitute teaching, someone asked what time it was, and every boy in the room looked at his wrist. (It was a boy's school, but I did have one girl in advanced math — the two schools combined sparse classes.)
16:15 Eight pontoon boats, three motorboats, and probably more behind the willow. Canal Days is over, but the fun goes on.
Well, duh, I have Dave's discharge papers in my blue folder, and can get the dates off those. But I want to leave for the hospital at 4:30 (16:30), and don't want to start anything that requires thinking.
My herb bed is badly overgrown, with many herbs intermingled. Most of it is catnip. It *would* start flourishing as soon as the cat dies. I happened to notice virginia creeper, said that definitely doesn't belong, followed the vine down among the herbs a far as I could, and pulled. It broke off without pulling out any of the unseen vine.
Then I noticed that it was leaflets three all the way down the vine. Oops! I immediately washed my hands with cold water, then again with dish detergent, and hope that got it off. I think I'll get up and do it again with real soap. [On Wednesday, it hasn't developed.]
I noticed a bee working the catnip flowers. Some of the seed heads will be ripe soon.
I've been going to bed early every night, but yesterday evening I felt quite alert even though I'd been running around as much as usual and I'd gotten only half a nap.
Perhaps that was because the nap was interrupted by a call to pick up Dave at the hospital.
We were a little dubious about not staying one more night, but at four-thirty in the morning, so far so good.
And the car still hasn't left the garage.
Not terribly long after we got back on Monday, Dave took the car to Freedom Express and filled the tank, then put it in the garage. I went along — partly to learn how its done. I wouldn't have thought of turning left instead of right upon exiting the gas station. Going around the block let us look at the odd things in the Warsaw Engineering parking lot and turn onto Argonne at a stop light.
We got a robocall yesterday from Indiana American Water saying to boil our drinking water. I've been under a boil-water order before. I was at Mother's house, so it must have been a *long* time ago. But I never lived with my parents in a house that didn't have its own well, so I can't think when or where this might have been. All I can remember is that we boiled some frozen grape juice that we had mixed up before getting the news.
Got a call ending the boil order while I was preparing supper. With generous use of tap water to wash the vegetables because I planned to simmer the soup more than the prescribed three minutes.
It turned out to be excellent soup, and we have enough left for another meal. I sliced the last of the ears I bought at Sweet Corn Charlie into it five minutes before serving.
After supper, I used the corn-slicing bowl for a dishpan and we have a clean counter. For a moment.
Dave is watching a Great Course on television. They were explaining Roman Gaul the last time I looked.
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Discharge paper says Dave was admitted on 8/22. That was Thursday. That is compatible with the Thursday note saying we had missed breakfast and lunch. The second catheter change, in the evening, was done in the emergency room, then he was taken upstairs. We had eaten before the second clog; I wonder when and what.
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Got a chuckle from a headline in Monday's Times-Union: "The Rise of the Faux Libertarians".
Deary me, *that* is nothing new.
My largest soup ladle is much too small for a water bucket.
Yesterday Dave backed the car out of the garage, then put it back in at bedtime. I should go shopping soon. We are out of canned soup and the TV dinners are getting picked over.
Not to mention bread, milk, and meat. I'm planning to stop at Kroger on the way back from the farmers markets tomorrow.
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Just as the storm hit, I saw a cottonwood branch fall on the east side of the house.
The cottonwoods are on the west side.
I remembered to bring the porch-chair cushions in before they got wet. Damp, but not wet.
I guess I don't need to worry about watering-in the three basil plants I set out in the strawberry bed this morning.
Bought a ribeye and pan-broiled it for supper. It was delicious, and Dave finally got his white rice.
🚲
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